


a wife for you

by AMazeofCold (CarterReid)



Series: longing to be longed for [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, F/M, Jealous Sherlock, Jealousy, M/M, Minor Mary Morstan/John Watson, One Shot, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Relapsing, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes Loves John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:47:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24720274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarterReid/pseuds/AMazeofCold
Summary: Sherlock expected a lot of things when he returned from the dead.John being in love with someone else was not one of them.
Relationships: Mary Morstan & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: longing to be longed for [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1787842
Comments: 5
Kudos: 71





	a wife for you

**Author's Note:**

> ironically, I wrote this a few days ago and it's kind of sat in my drafts because I wasn't overly sure about it, then someone requested a pining!Sherlock POV and, well, here goes. *crosses fingers and toes*
> 
> there's all the pain and some drug use in this one, so careful how we go. 
> 
> Rights to the right people, of course, because I don't own these wonderful characters
> 
> Love to you all,  
> -R.

Sherlock expects to be welcomed back to joy. 

He did everything for John. He's been living out on the street, in the back of burnt-out vans, wedged tight between crates in trucks as he smuggles himself across the globe, meagre belongings stuffed in a rucksack (belongings that are replaced every few weeks because blood and bullet holes are _conspicuous_ ). There's no room for sentiment in the items he carries, so he packs up his feelings and stuffs them deep inside, where they're safe and nothing can yank them free. Not when the blunt edges of rusted old blades carve up and down his back in Argentina; not when they snap four of his fingers in Prague demanding answers over and over; not when they hold him underwater again and again and again in Vietnam, laughing as he splutters and wretches up bile and fluid; not even as they pull out a tooth and all of his toe nails in a long abandoned warehouse in France. He's endured for John, he's done **everything** for John.

He _died_ for John. 

John should know that... should know that Sherlock's absence wasn't for anything less than to save his life. That Sherlock wouldn't leave him, wouldn't have made him _watch_ unless something bigger than themselves was going on and John needed to believe, right down to his bones, that Sherlock Holmes could only be found in a graveyard beneath the shade of an old, gnarled tree.

John should know that Sherlock loves him enough to come back, _eventually,_ no matter how many times Moriarty's network demanded his blood, broke his bones or hunted him like a dog across the world after he lit a fire beneath them and grinned as they burned. 

So Sherlock expects the doctor's face to split wide, a smile pulling his lips while tears prick at the corner of his eyes. He can hear John shape his name, all hope and disbelief and _relief_. He feels a tender brush as John reaches out to check that he's real, and then the brutal, bruising grip of a hug that threatens to break his already cracked ribs and grind them into dust. He expects to be held up, and to hold John up in return as they cling to one another, sobbing but trying so hard not to.

Sherlock expects to feel love. 

Instead he feels John's knuckles on his teeth as the screams of other restaurant patrons fill his ears.

John is _not_ happy to see him. 

And he's not **alone** either. 

Sherlock has endured enough women parading through Baker Street to last a life time. He can't remember most of them because he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to put any more attention on John's woman than necessary. _Boring teacher_ , _the one with the dog_ , _the nurse one_ : he's lucky John doesn't realise his dismissal isn't just because he's **Sherlock.** The never-ending procession has been a sore spot, one that not even his ever-callous brother is brave enough to pick at. Even when Sherlock lets his lips pull back in a snarl as he snaps maliciously about weight and calls Mycroft _fatty_.

The only way he's kept his sanity is because they're never serious. John's attempts at finding a partner are always half-hearted and Sherlock comes first.

Sherlock. Always. Comes. First.

John will push back on the little things, a meal here or there, maybe a loose agreement, but cases? Mycroft's warnings of danger nights? Sherlock needing something or wanting to do something? They all stand firm at the top of John Watson's priority list. So Sherlock writes off the women as experiments, as John getting comfortable - or getting laid - and rules out everything else because he knows, deep down, that there isn't anyone else for John than himself.

But this one is called _Mary_ and according to Mycroft's limited - and reluctant - explanation, it's serious.

It's **serious**. 

Sherlock would be lying if he said he expected John to avoid anything that resembled dating, but he doesn't expect this. He doesn't expect _his_ Doctor to find someone else **so soon**. It's jagged glass in his heart and a knife in his back all at once. Even though they weren't anything, not really at least, it doesn't remove the **loss**... or the death of what could have been. Everyone saw it: friends, family, the press, even strangers. They'd all spoken about the Consulting Detective and his Blogger Doctor like they were _SherlockandJohn_ not Sherlock and John, and the soldier's inability to see the obvious _hurts._

"I thought we were worth something," he confesses, one quiet night when John's still _pissed_ but realises he can't ignore his resurrected best friend any longer. The words are more than Sherlock wanted to give away but now he's said them he can't bring himself to try and take them back.

There's a moment, a flicker in the soldier's gaze and then something steely eclipses his eyes. John doesn't understand, of course he doesn't, when he says: "Yeah, me too, Sherlock." But Sherlock's heart breaks a little anyway. 

It's gets a little better - they're talking at least - but then John _asks_. 

And Mary says yes. 

Mycroft comes over, an hour after John sent the text informing his former flatmate of his change in relationship status, and sits without a word. He offers his brother a cigarette. 

"Low tar?" Sherlock asks, voice cold and detached, as he takes it. 

For a moment Mycroft looks sad, so desperately sad, then he covers it up beneath that impartial expression. "Not today, brother mine." A pause. "Just the one, though."

Sherlock hums and pretends he's going to listen. But, then again, he pretends a lot of things.

He pretends that his heart isn't breaking because the one person who looked at him and really _saw him,_ has chosen someone else. That his person, the one who believed in him, who's killed for him and tried to sacrifice himself to save him too, isn't drifting away further and further, to a place he can't reach. Sherlock pretends that the itch in the crook of his left elbow isn't a siren call to his hindbrain to just _block-it-all-out_. He pushes it back and just pretends he's alright. 

He pretends he'll survive. 

He just pretends and pretends through it all, and even after _everything_ , John still chooses her.

He chooses her again and again, despite the lies, the deception, the _secrets_. 

_She did more to hurt you than I ever did, John_ , Sherlock thinks as he watches them, happy and together. _Why can you love her and not me? I could give you all of this and more, John_. 

But in the end, it doesn't matter, because Mary wears John's ring and her middle rounds with John's child and his best friend **beams** with it all. 

Sherlock hates himself for his misery. Hates that he's so angry at Mary for taking the one light in his life. Angry that John doesn't _know_ , even after everything. Angry that Mary probably does know - _Sherlock needs you John_ _-_ but has taken the Doctor anyway.

John was his. 

Now? - now John is **hers**.

He watches from afar, watches the life he wanted so, so, _so badly_ , play out like a film.

His film, but without him in the right role, because in his weakest moments, he believed it would be _them_.

He and John, promising to one another that they'd always **be** he and John as they stood before Mrs Hudson and Lestrade and Molly and even Mycroft too. Matching rings always polished on the outside and never on the inside (maybe taking it off once or twice when using corrosive chemicals in the kitchen because he could ruin the table, but never the gold on his finger). Them, a few years later, bringing home a pair of orphans in need of a family, both filled with John's kindness and Sherlock's curiosity, too bright and too brilliant to be anything other than theirs. Baker Street filled with so much joy and laughter as they grow, teaching John and Sherlock how to be parents, Mycroft how to be an uncle, Mrs Hudson settling into her role as Gran like a ballet dancer to the stage. They watch them grow older and wiser, until scraped knees are broken hearts but even as strong and brilliant as they are, chasing degrees in another town and making mistakes as they go, they still come home every other weekend if the trains are running properly. Then it's just he and John, older now and wrinkled, packing up Baker Street with slow movements, reluctant but ready. A house, waiting in Sussex where they spend their retirement tending to bee hives, cases few and far between, because their quiet life was all Sherlock wanted. 

_"Come on, Sherlock love, at least wear the hat, I don't want you getting stung."_

Then, a knock on the door one hazy summer day and their child, placing a small bundle in John's arms with all the care and nervousness of a new parent. The man he loves with everything he is, with everything he has, bites back the tears as he gazes down at the small, delicate features with enough love to swallow the world. _"We named him after you Pops,_ " his child says. " _This is Hamish Watson-Holmes_." And John weeps and weeps as he becomes a _Grandpa_ for the first time, and laughs when Sherlock hushes him and calls him an old, emotional idiot like he isn't holding back tears of his own. 

Their life flickers behind his eyes in an instant. But when he pries his eyelids open, it's gone. Torn from him so cruelly, so coldly, it leaves a hole in his chest that's _**cavernous**_.

He's flayed open and vulnerable, and he doesn't have the heart to persist anymore.

It doesn't take long to find a dealer, even less time to procure his chosen poison and hurry ~~home~~ back to Baker Street.

(It's not home without John.)

The sting is sharp and ugly and depressing the plunger feels like a betrayal, but the euphoria is _everything_ , and Sherlock lets himself drift away on a kaleidoscope of lights and dulled sounds - 

\- and the world is slow and smooth and simple and it's too much in his blood but John loves him here, wants to love him and he doesn't want **her:** _"I've never wanted her Sherlock, it's always been **you** "_ and his thoughts are loose and shift like sands in a storm - 

Sherlock sinks down deep. 

And in the deep, beneath an open country sky and surrounded by the smell of honey, John holds him close and whispers love letters into his skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for any mistakes with it all, I am the world's worst editor, 
> 
> Stay safe,  
> -R.


End file.
